By Mya Clark

Volume 67, No. 3

The student-led Fall Shorts Festival was Sunday, Oct. 10 through Tuesday, Oct. 12 and each night sold out the COVID-19 capacity limit. This year’s Shorts Festival was made up of four short plays with entirely different storylines and characters.

Alpha Psi Omega (APO), Malone’s theatre honorary group, gathered over the summer to choose the theme of this year’s Shorts. They decided on “New Beginnings” to show the challenges overcoming the pandemic and struggles of having to save the theatre program. 

“APO had gone through fundamental changes in the past year and we had been working on new philosophies to come off stronger in the upcoming year,” said Savannah Pew, president of APO.

They reached out to student and alumni writers with the help of Craig Joseph, the theatre director in residence. Auditions were held in mid-September. Actors were required to read from children’s books with a specific emotion.

The directors were given five scripts to work with and narrowed down the scripts to the ones they thought were the most playable. Then they chose each cast based on the actors’ auditions.

“We had exactly the number of actors for the roles of the shows which almost seemed like a sign that we were doing the right thing,” Pew said.

The first short was “Campfire Couple’s Counseling,” written by Abi Jo Shoaff. It starred Ellie Beckner, Tyler Kirker, Miki Strader, Elena Daley, and Alyvia Brough. This play was directed by Faith Brenneman, senior biology major, and first year director.